Ancestry Non-Shocker: Larry David and Bernie Sanders are Distant Cousins

On the fourth season premiere of "Finding Your Roots," Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed a match between the Senator and comedian's DNA.

Throughout the three seasons of Henry Louis Gates Jr.,’s PBS series Finding Your Roots, the author and historian has used family ancestry research to track familial connections for celebrities (and between them), with some surprising results. But few of the show’s revelations have been as predictable as that of last night’s fourth season premiere: that Senator Bernie Sanders and comedian Larry David, who has portrayed him quite convincingly on Saturday Night Live, are related.

Gates and his team were able to make the connection via a long identical stretch in both Sanders and David’s DNA, which indicates cousins. David, who was hoping for a connection to “a good athlete,” is amused and eventually accepting (“Cousin Bernie!”), while Sanders is unsurprised: “He does a better Bernie Sanders than I do!”